Warning ....really long post....
Hey, I have not been online much lately but I am sitting here with covid for the second or fourth time wondering what has happened to 2023 already. It is flying by. This has been the wildest year I can remember as far as roller coasters go. The highs and lows have been extreme and never ending.
I cannot remember a year where I have had so much to do and so much still to do. Bad luck has followed us at every turn and it just never stops...have I said it never stops? This year started off with me helping the wife find a new horse after hers died in December. We talked about what she wanted in a horse and we found one that fit the bill. Young, sweet, green broke, built like a tank, good breeding, and not perfect. My wife wanted to start over and build this horse up like she did her last.
After a vet check saying the lower front leg issues would be fine and most likely not an issue for many years we were relieved with that knowledge. No good news goes unpunished as that is the same day we found out the mare was nine months pregnant. Because of the wet cold winter and the muddy field the mare was living in the owner had no clue she was knocked up and either did we.
So, now the joy of the new horse gets turned upside down. We are not breeders, our place is not set up for babies, and we never wanted a baby horse. We knuckled down and re-did our whole place to get it ready for the baby. We pumped up the mare so the baby would have the best chance of being born healthy. When the baby was born in March it was the coolest thing for a day......then the mare turned into a bit*h and would not let us near her or the baby for two weeks.
After a time the mare settled down and we got to work with the foal and just enjoyed him, and watched him grow. Then tragedy strikes and the mare shoves him through a gate and rips him open. This led to an emergency vet call that made things worse, a trip to a second vet, getting sedated four times over two weeks time, having two sets of stitches and an infection, and stall confinement for three weeks for the pair. What a nightmare!. I had to re-do the stall, add a waterer, clean up after them and try to keep them cool.
Add in the emergency trip to the vet could not be done in our trailer as it would not work for a mare and foal. I had to borrow one that would work. The one I found had not been used for five years and I had to do a quick service on it. After that first trip we knew that trailer would not work for us again and it proved correct when we tried to use it for the second visit when the wound got infected. The Colt would not load and he ran around and tore stitches and refused to stop running, after all he had been penned up for over a week. We aborted taking him to the vet that day.
That night I found another trailer to borrow and had to go get it and ready it for the next morning. With the second trip to the vet under our belt our little Colt now has had his third sedation that completely traumatized him again. Two weeks later he went back for stitch removal for his fourth bad experience......but not before I had the wife go buy a new trailer that all three horses could fit in. I also had to clean up and ready our old trailer for sale and did sell that one.
So now the horses are back to normal but the wife is at the end of her rope. I'm working two jobs and she is fried. We hired a trainer to help us with the baby and the mare. This gal has been well worth the money but there is still lots of work to be done and I was struggling with the Colt until I realized I was pushing him too hard.
While all this is going on our farrier flaked on us and we had to find another. The one we found was bat shat crazy and after two shoeings on the mare she comes up lame. We find another farrier and he gets the mares feet back to where they should be and the mare goes totally lame, and cannot stand on the right foot. The mare may need to go back to the vet tomorrow and we are uncertain if this horse will ever be ridable.
Now the foal needs weaned. My wife cannot stand to see an animal in distress and wanted to prolong things. Finally the trainer said to just get it done. I built a weaning pen and we took a month to get him used to the idea of separating from his mom. Last Saturday we locked him in for the last time. He is on day four now and just starting to settle down but pissed off at the world. Mom is doing well other than her lameness issue. All this weaning and foot trouble at the same time has the wife overwhelmed. She has me do all the feeding and cleaning and won't go out to the horses because she feels so bad about everything and has covid too.
I am six months behind on getting my firewood done, my yard work is behind, my Jeep is being ignored and the new engine I built for it is sitting waiting for me to have time to install it. I bought a new gun and have not had a second to even look at it much less shoot it.....have not pulled a trigger this year. Oh, let's not forget the bathroom I'm remodeling.....it is 2/3's done but I still have to pull up the floor and get tile laid down....no clue when that will resume. I have not had time to use my pony and he just sits.....but soon he will be the Colts new buddy as we are using him to buddy up to the baby.....lord knows what trouble we may get into introducing those two together for the first time!
On top of all that my family pulled a fast on on me and purposely withheld that my older brother was dying until it was too late for me to go see him. My own 83 year old mother was not allowed/ did not contact me until it was too late. Luckily for me a person was able to relay to me that my brother was sick and not doing well behind the back of my family that ordered him not to say anything. I did find out he died but do not know if any services we ever held...at this point I am done trying to figure it out.
The wife and I talked over future plans for the horses and both know if the mare ends up lame we will put her down. If she is ridable the wife will do what it takes to make the mare happy and ride her as required. The Colt is not going anywhere and we have no plans for him other than he is not going anywhere anytime soon. Knowing that my wife is getting up in age she and I don't want to see her get hurt, if this mare does not work out the wife is going to stop riding. This mare would make a good brood mare but the wife is against it and not willing to send her off to a life of making babies. Time will tell what we do with the mare and we agree nothing is off the table yet.
We may find ourselves getting out of the horse hobby or we may still be in it...the roller coaster continues on that front. I'm trying to retire and agreed to stay on one more year so the college can figure out when the best time for me to retire would be for them. I need to take six months off at the college when I retire before they can hire me back again as my main job is Calpers and double dipping is not allowed. A separation must occur and then I can resume working part time or risk losing my retirement from the state.
I was able to sell one older vehicle at a huge profit and buy a newer commuter/ do it all vehicle. I also sold my horse trailer for far more than we bought it for 13 years ago. But both of these sales were not planned. The vehicle was breaking down every week and I was spending every second of free time fixing it so it had to go and the trailer had to be replaced as the new horses could not use it.
Overall the wife and I are happy but we are just overwhelmed. We have a plan, we know where we are headed, and we are on the same page. I need to keep working the second job to pay for all this nonsense and the wife needs me home more to help out....I cannot win.
Let's see, what else happened so far....oh, yeah, I got on a murder trial as a juror and was the foreman. Very neat experience and yes we convicted the guy but it took a month and a half worth of time and money away from me at the part time job. And, a fellow juror, the son of high school class mates of mine, was killed two months later in an automobile crash. What else....oh, I dropped a log on my foot two weeks ago and it still hurts so bad I cannot put my boots on and lace them up. My wife had another cancer scare but that is working itself out as not cancer but something else less severe. She has also lost two doctors this year.
The dog we babysit finally got settled in with more people in his owners house so we did not have to take him every day then two weeks later we are back to picking him up everyday. My dog is 14 and getting fragile.....the other neighbors have asked my wife for the third time to watch their animals while they vacation, and she won't say no but feels pinned down taking care of everyone else's animals. Just a crazy year and I have had nobody to talk to about any of this as the two friends I do have locally one is messed up losing his shop and other family issues and the other just stopped communicating as he got busy after he retired. It has been hard because the wife shuts down and can only handle so much. Luck for us we do communicate well when we have to and we are working for the same goal.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel...I just hope it is not a train.
Hey, I have not been online much lately but I am sitting here with covid for the second or fourth time wondering what has happened to 2023 already. It is flying by. This has been the wildest year I can remember as far as roller coasters go. The highs and lows have been extreme and never ending.
I cannot remember a year where I have had so much to do and so much still to do. Bad luck has followed us at every turn and it just never stops...have I said it never stops? This year started off with me helping the wife find a new horse after hers died in December. We talked about what she wanted in a horse and we found one that fit the bill. Young, sweet, green broke, built like a tank, good breeding, and not perfect. My wife wanted to start over and build this horse up like she did her last.
After a vet check saying the lower front leg issues would be fine and most likely not an issue for many years we were relieved with that knowledge. No good news goes unpunished as that is the same day we found out the mare was nine months pregnant. Because of the wet cold winter and the muddy field the mare was living in the owner had no clue she was knocked up and either did we.
So, now the joy of the new horse gets turned upside down. We are not breeders, our place is not set up for babies, and we never wanted a baby horse. We knuckled down and re-did our whole place to get it ready for the baby. We pumped up the mare so the baby would have the best chance of being born healthy. When the baby was born in March it was the coolest thing for a day......then the mare turned into a bit*h and would not let us near her or the baby for two weeks.
After a time the mare settled down and we got to work with the foal and just enjoyed him, and watched him grow. Then tragedy strikes and the mare shoves him through a gate and rips him open. This led to an emergency vet call that made things worse, a trip to a second vet, getting sedated four times over two weeks time, having two sets of stitches and an infection, and stall confinement for three weeks for the pair. What a nightmare!. I had to re-do the stall, add a waterer, clean up after them and try to keep them cool.
Add in the emergency trip to the vet could not be done in our trailer as it would not work for a mare and foal. I had to borrow one that would work. The one I found had not been used for five years and I had to do a quick service on it. After that first trip we knew that trailer would not work for us again and it proved correct when we tried to use it for the second visit when the wound got infected. The Colt would not load and he ran around and tore stitches and refused to stop running, after all he had been penned up for over a week. We aborted taking him to the vet that day.
That night I found another trailer to borrow and had to go get it and ready it for the next morning. With the second trip to the vet under our belt our little Colt now has had his third sedation that completely traumatized him again. Two weeks later he went back for stitch removal for his fourth bad experience......but not before I had the wife go buy a new trailer that all three horses could fit in. I also had to clean up and ready our old trailer for sale and did sell that one.
So now the horses are back to normal but the wife is at the end of her rope. I'm working two jobs and she is fried. We hired a trainer to help us with the baby and the mare. This gal has been well worth the money but there is still lots of work to be done and I was struggling with the Colt until I realized I was pushing him too hard.
While all this is going on our farrier flaked on us and we had to find another. The one we found was bat shat crazy and after two shoeings on the mare she comes up lame. We find another farrier and he gets the mares feet back to where they should be and the mare goes totally lame, and cannot stand on the right foot. The mare may need to go back to the vet tomorrow and we are uncertain if this horse will ever be ridable.
Now the foal needs weaned. My wife cannot stand to see an animal in distress and wanted to prolong things. Finally the trainer said to just get it done. I built a weaning pen and we took a month to get him used to the idea of separating from his mom. Last Saturday we locked him in for the last time. He is on day four now and just starting to settle down but pissed off at the world. Mom is doing well other than her lameness issue. All this weaning and foot trouble at the same time has the wife overwhelmed. She has me do all the feeding and cleaning and won't go out to the horses because she feels so bad about everything and has covid too.
I am six months behind on getting my firewood done, my yard work is behind, my Jeep is being ignored and the new engine I built for it is sitting waiting for me to have time to install it. I bought a new gun and have not had a second to even look at it much less shoot it.....have not pulled a trigger this year. Oh, let's not forget the bathroom I'm remodeling.....it is 2/3's done but I still have to pull up the floor and get tile laid down....no clue when that will resume. I have not had time to use my pony and he just sits.....but soon he will be the Colts new buddy as we are using him to buddy up to the baby.....lord knows what trouble we may get into introducing those two together for the first time!
On top of all that my family pulled a fast on on me and purposely withheld that my older brother was dying until it was too late for me to go see him. My own 83 year old mother was not allowed/ did not contact me until it was too late. Luckily for me a person was able to relay to me that my brother was sick and not doing well behind the back of my family that ordered him not to say anything. I did find out he died but do not know if any services we ever held...at this point I am done trying to figure it out.
The wife and I talked over future plans for the horses and both know if the mare ends up lame we will put her down. If she is ridable the wife will do what it takes to make the mare happy and ride her as required. The Colt is not going anywhere and we have no plans for him other than he is not going anywhere anytime soon. Knowing that my wife is getting up in age she and I don't want to see her get hurt, if this mare does not work out the wife is going to stop riding. This mare would make a good brood mare but the wife is against it and not willing to send her off to a life of making babies. Time will tell what we do with the mare and we agree nothing is off the table yet.
We may find ourselves getting out of the horse hobby or we may still be in it...the roller coaster continues on that front. I'm trying to retire and agreed to stay on one more year so the college can figure out when the best time for me to retire would be for them. I need to take six months off at the college when I retire before they can hire me back again as my main job is Calpers and double dipping is not allowed. A separation must occur and then I can resume working part time or risk losing my retirement from the state.
I was able to sell one older vehicle at a huge profit and buy a newer commuter/ do it all vehicle. I also sold my horse trailer for far more than we bought it for 13 years ago. But both of these sales were not planned. The vehicle was breaking down every week and I was spending every second of free time fixing it so it had to go and the trailer had to be replaced as the new horses could not use it.
Overall the wife and I are happy but we are just overwhelmed. We have a plan, we know where we are headed, and we are on the same page. I need to keep working the second job to pay for all this nonsense and the wife needs me home more to help out....I cannot win.
Let's see, what else happened so far....oh, yeah, I got on a murder trial as a juror and was the foreman. Very neat experience and yes we convicted the guy but it took a month and a half worth of time and money away from me at the part time job. And, a fellow juror, the son of high school class mates of mine, was killed two months later in an automobile crash. What else....oh, I dropped a log on my foot two weeks ago and it still hurts so bad I cannot put my boots on and lace them up. My wife had another cancer scare but that is working itself out as not cancer but something else less severe. She has also lost two doctors this year.
The dog we babysit finally got settled in with more people in his owners house so we did not have to take him every day then two weeks later we are back to picking him up everyday. My dog is 14 and getting fragile.....the other neighbors have asked my wife for the third time to watch their animals while they vacation, and she won't say no but feels pinned down taking care of everyone else's animals. Just a crazy year and I have had nobody to talk to about any of this as the two friends I do have locally one is messed up losing his shop and other family issues and the other just stopped communicating as he got busy after he retired. It has been hard because the wife shuts down and can only handle so much. Luck for us we do communicate well when we have to and we are working for the same goal.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel...I just hope it is not a train.
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